Lucite UK MMA plant still at 50% after 2nd unit restart hitch

13 October 2003 11:59[Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (CNI)--Lucite International said Monday it was unable to restart its second methyl methacrylate (MMA) unit at Billingham, northeast England, at the weekend, leaving the site running at 50% capacity.

David Brooks, business director for monomers, told CNI today he hoped the second unit would be operational "later this week".

He confirmed that Lucite has not needed to declare force majeure on MMA from the plant, although he added "we don't rule it out".

The plant has a total capacity of 200 000 tonne/ year.

Lucite was forced to close the plant some three weeks ago because of unspecified technical problems.